


Love, Incarnate

by amagicbeyond



Series: Reverse Crypt Scenes [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, But also, Hope, M/M, Mark of Cain!Dean, yes this is another reverse!crypt scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amagicbeyond/pseuds/amagicbeyond
Summary: This is not a demon weakened by unwanted doses of human blood. This is not a foe Cas can wrap in his arms with stolen grace and drag into the light.This is Cain incarnate.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Reverse Crypt Scenes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/106859
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	Love, Incarnate

**Author's Note:**

> No idea when I wrote this but it was clearly before the Mark of Cain storyline played itself out. Never posted it anywhere before as far as I can figure!

Cas rounds a corner and there is Dean, surrounded by blood and body parts and unmentionable gore. He is silhouetted against the gruesome scene, back turned, head tilted at the sound of Cas’ graceless entrance, the First Blade shining wet in his hand. He is beautiful, and terrifying, and Cas is suddenly afraid.

He doesn’t want him to turn. He doesn’t want to see those eyes gone hollow black.

_Sam, we have failed_ , he thinks to the Winchester boy who put his faith in the wrong horse, who is still out there fighting a lost cause, losing his soul to it. _It’s over. It’s done_. 

This is not a demon weakened by unwanted doses of human blood. This is not a foe Cas can wrap in his arms with stolen grace and drag into the light.

This is Cain incarnate.

_Mark trumps angel._

Dean turns.

The tilt of his head is unfamiliar, the mirthless smile unsettling. “Cas,” he says, and there is a dangerous drawl to his voice that brings Cas back to a colourless forest, a desperately endless fight to the death, lonely prayers in the night. “I was hoping you would come.”

Words stick deep in Cas’ chest, he can’t get them out. _Why_ , he thinks. _So I could bear witness to your damnation? Because you know –_

_Because you know the pain it brings me._

“Hello, Dean,” is what he says, and it feels like a goodbye.

The angel Castiel wants very much to cry. He will kill the man he loves tonight, or in turn be killed by him.

_I do not know if I have the strength for this,_ he prays, and he knows not to whom.

Dean smiles at his words, a small smile that, for a moment, gives Cas pause. “You and I,” he says, pointing between them with the Blade. “Have some unfinished business.”

Castiel withdraws his angel blade. Dean looks at it.

“So that’s how it’s gonna be.”

The fight is furious, anticlimactic, brief. The angel blade is knocked from Castiel’s grip and the First is at his throat, their bodies pressed against the wall, Dean’s face inches from his. There is a look in his eyes Cas doesn’t know how to read.

“Dean,” he gasps.

Those eyes go black, and Dean delivers a fast, sharp blow with the butt of the blade. Another, another.

Cas remembers, as he falls to his knees, a dusty crypt, an outstretched hand, supplication. He will not beg. He does not deserve to be spared – this is only justice.

The Blade leaves marks any other could not. Cas is blindsided by pain he remembers only as human. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes. It is all he can do to stay upright, to keep from pressing his face to the floor.

“Say something!” bursts Dean, stepping back, breathing heavily. “This is your cue, isn’t it? _This isn’t you. We’re family._ ” The next one he spits, as if the words hurt. “ _I need you_.”

It hangs in the air, an eternal pause. The whole world tastes of blood.

“I love you,” Cas says.

It’s a breath, a whisper, the truth. Dean blinks, and his eyes are green. 

Cas drops his own.

“Cas,” says Dean, and then is on his knees before him.

He doesn’t move to touch him, doesn’t raise the Blade, only looks, and looks, and looks. Cas can see it, just a glimmer, of the man behind the monster, the man he loves. 

And loves, and _loves_.

Hope wells up, and in one swift movement, he takes Dean’s face, and presses his mouth to his.

_Please, my love,_ he prays, and now he knows who he’s praying to. _Let me give you this._

And Castiel releases his grace.


End file.
